Tag Archives: Addiction

Medical Marijuana, Mental Health

The Medical Marijuana Hoax, Part 2: Mental Health

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Medical marijuana tries to bypass discussion of the mental health risks.  Marijuana is linked to long-term psychiatric problems such as schizophrenia, anxiety and psychosis.  There is mounting research to suggest that youth usage of marijuana greatly increases the chance for both depression and suicide, as recently reported in the The Lancet Psychiatry Journal.

The PTSD Marketing Strategy

It was a good publicity stunt, but a cruel trick.  The marijuana industry recently staged an event in Denver to attract veterans. They gave out free marijuana for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  PTSD is very real, and it’s a condition to be taken seriously.

The medical community should find solutions that would bring veterans back to their previous state of functioning before combat.  Louis Zamperini, the hero of a book by Laura Hillenbrand and movie directed by Angelina Jolie, Unbroken, had severe PTSD from World War II.  He had been beaten in a Japanese prison camp and lost at sea 46 days on a raft. It’s unlikely he would have healed and charged forward so well if marijuana had been offered as the solution.  The movie will be in theaters on December 25.

Marijuana numbs certain emotions.  It also effects memory.  PTSD symptoms are different for different people, but it can include numbness, too.  If fear, numbness and depression are present with PTSD, there should be a means that re-build connection to everyday life, rather than avoid the reality of life.  Dogs and Yoga are amongst the best treatments for rebuilding connection.  Time is a great healer, too.

Handing out free so-called “marijuana medicine” makes a mockery of recovery.  It’s hoped our veterans could get back to work and not face long-term disability.   Keeping “patients” addicted and under the thumb of medical marijuana industry may do the opposite.  The best book on the subject, Judith Lewis Herman’s Trauma and Recovery, doesn’t suggest masking memory.  Our first choice should always be therapies that go to the root of the problem, rather than masking the symptoms.  Medical marijuana has the potential for masking symptoms.  It also risks making a person apathetic and numb.  It could give the illusion of getting better without deep healing.

Why does marijuana cause dependency?  As explained in a testimony, marijuana usage interferes with the natural processes and messes with brain chemistry.   After stopping marijuana use, irritability, anxiety, depression, nervousness, restlessness, insomnia and and suicide can be part of marijuana withdrawal.   As time can heal marijuana withdrawal symptoms, time can heal PTSD.  If we want veterans to not be permanently disabled, Congress should not allow marijuana for veterans suffering from PTSD.

A Cruel Attempt to Treat Psychiatric Disorders

Marijuana may increase the burden of mental illness.  It is well-known in medical circles that marijuana makes the course of mental illness worse and successful treatment less likely.  In fact, marijuana is the most common illicit drug to trigger a psychiatric disorder.   For this reason, extreme caution should be taken before recommending marijuana to anyone, for any reason.

There’s strong evidence that mental illness is increasing in America. According to Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America and Anatomy of an Epidemic, an increase in bi-polar disorder is driven in part by the expansion of diagnostic boundaries, but it is also being fueled by the widespread use of illicit drugs.

Whitaker explains that studies of first episode bipolar patients, roughly 1/3 suffered their first bout of mania or mood instability after they had abused illicit drugs — amphetamines, cocaine, marijuana and hallucinogens.  Marijuana, as the most widespread of the illicit drugs, poses the most risk.  (See 10 Marijuana Myths Advocates want you to Believe)

A culture of medication teaches our children to look for easy solutions; it may be influencing the widespread desire to self-medicate with marijuana and other drugs. Psychiatric medications are over-prescribed — anti-depressants, as well as anti-psychotics and ADHD medications.  Whitaker also believes that the use of psychiatric stimulants and anti-depressants increases the risk of getting the bipolar diagnosis.

Does-weed-kill-brain-cells2
The cannabinoid neurotransmitter, anandamide, may be displaced with marijuana use over time, giving users withdrawal symptoms when they quit, including anxiety, depression.

Leafly, a cannabis company in Seattle run Privateer Holdings, solicits users by advertising  88 strains of marijuana to cure bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety and ADHD.  This type of advertising should be censored due to the lack of evidence and high risk for psychosis that comes with marijuana.  Any psychiatric treatment demands strict oversight by a qualified medical practitioner, and is often done on a test basis. Medical marijuana “providers” often don’t have to meet standards or qualifications, other than being at least 21 years old.

Prevention over Substituting Addictions

Those who disagree with medical marijuana do not necessarily advocate for the alcohol or pharmaceutical industry.

Some of us notice that people who become addicted to any drug usually began their drug usage with marijuana, which is another reason we wish to prevent youth from using it at all costs.   In fact, when it comes to teens and young adults, addicts almost always begin their drug usage as a marijuana user.   The marijuana industry gives lip service to wanting to keep it from those under age 21, while using the social media and other tactics try to get young people to support them.

Opiate Addiction Solved by Marijuana ????

Recently an article suggested that marijuana can be a tool to beating opiate addiction,  because of a study which opined that states with medical marijuana have fewer opiate overdose deaths. The study shouldn’t be interpreted as proof that medical marijuana brought a drop in opiate use or death.

States with the highest marijuana usage, including use by ages 12-17,  tend to also have the highest opiate pill, cocaine and heroin usage.   Oregon, Colorado and Vermont will need to limit youth marijuana usage, if they truly want to bring down other problems.  To  a certain extent the current heroin problem has arisen because people addicted to the opiate pills have been unable to get the pills.

The logical way to avoid death by opiate overdose is to keep it in the hands of only those who need it, teach responsible use, and avoid over-prescribing.  Not everyone who uses opiate pills needs to get addicted.  Many people use vicodin, percocet and oxycontin only for the limited duration until the pain is gone.   Twisted, illogical thinking is suggesting that we must substitute one addiction with a drug that can also work on the mind and cause psychosis.

If we are to solve the problem of addiction in a lasting way, we need to help children and teens not begin to use.  We emphasize proper usage, not substituting one addiction for another, or “lilypadding” from drug to drug.  Prevention before abuse starts has the BEST chance of success.

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The Unraveling, Part 3: Temporary Mental Instability vs Bipolar I

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(Read Part 1 and Part 2.  Permission required for reprinting) After Ryan’s death, I remembered reading many years ago in a magazine  about Margaret Trudeau, then wife of the Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. She was in her 20s, partied with socialites, and also suffered psychotic breaks.  Each time she referenced her use of marijuana as the trigger for those episodes.  I’ve since read current articles, and she continues to share. For her, marijuana led her into “madness.”  It was much later that she was diagnosed with  bipolar disorder.  It’s hard for me to accept her son, Justin Trudeau, wanting to have the same position his father held.  He’s a proponent of pot, despite knowing his mother’s mental health was so affected by marijuana. It speaks volumes on how great the opposition to promoting the truth about this drug!

Ryan was not helped to understand why his brain lost touch with reality under the influence of THC–this is the “elephant in the room.” The fact that hospitals don’t consider marijuana a factor in the picture of mental health is a tragedy. We need every researcher, past and present, across the globe, who understands the truth about what pot does to young brains to stand up in solidarity.

The experience of Great Britain was that it decriminalized marijuana, saw a spike in mental illness as a result of loosening the law, and then tightened their laws again. Canada has website on the cannabis-psychosis-schizophrenia link. The US, on the other hand, is not noticing its problem, or influenced by the marijuana financiers, is refusing to see that so many young people who are addicted to it are also  having psychiatric problems. I believe the psychiatry community has failed to connect the dots, ignoring the facts of today’s cannabis – so much stronger than when they were in school, or even 10 years ago.

The Lancet Journal of Psychiatry’s recent article points to a sevenfold risk of suicide for teens who use marijuana.

The second break happened 18 months after the first one, but this time I pre-arranged for Ryan to receive drug rehabilitation at a different hospital. The hospital in Pasadena gave the ‘green light’ for rehab. We paid $12,500 up front and Ryan’s PPO would insure the rest. His uncle and grandfather came, too, for support. Less than 24 hours after admittance, the staff coerced Ryan to their locked unit, where he was warehoused for 13 days with anti-psychotics exceeding the FDA limits.

The staff asked us several times: “Could Ryan have dropped acid? He doesn’t seem like our bipolar patients.” Once again his toxicology report came up positive (+) for THC. Again, in 2011, just like 2009, no one believed marijuana could cause this effect.
By now, we realized that our son’s drug problem was with weed and that he had relapsed with weed, but he never got a shot at the drug rehab for which we had already paid.

Ryan was “dumped” from their unit on the 13th day. The insurance refused to pay for it, perhaps after reading the notes of how much worse Ryan had become inside the hospital unit.  Why are insurance companies allowed to have so much influence on a patient’s treatment when they don’t have expertise?  He was drugged mercilessly into just a state of stupor. It was an endless nightmare for our son and for his family.

Ryan was taken off the last anti-psychotic at the first follow-up visit with the same psychiatrist because he appeared normal, compared to his state during hospitalization. However, he was still actively psychotic at that one week follow up. (I had stopped Haldol when he came home, as I was horrified my son had been receiving Haldol round-the-clock. Of course, at 6’4”, Ryan was intimidating. He had never become violent, but he tried to escape several times, realizing he had been tricked from the open unit into the locked unit.)

Coming Home Again

Ryan was hit with a personal betrayal at the same time–which just leveled him. Yet, with love and support of our family, he emerged once again from psychosis 10 weeks later. It came within the same time frame as the first episode, probably not a coincidence. This time it happened without medications, and I am suspicious that the medicines didn’t really affect his state of mind coming off psychosis after the first episode.

Ryan stayed with the Ivy League psychiatrist after coming out of psychosis for several visits. He drove all the way to his office in Pasadena, then had to wait up to 1 1/2 hours, as he piled in patients for the 15-minute check-in. I always hoped Ryan would invite me to go with him, but he didn’t. On the last visit, Ryan came home and announced “Mom, I’m not going back to see him because he never takes his head out of the computer, and doesn’t even look at me.”

After my son died, I subpoenaed his records only to find many days of nursing notes documenting: “Please call my mom she’ll know how to help me.” “I can’t stay in here like the last time, you don’t know what happened to me there.” But no one called me or told me despite my calling twice a day and visits every night.

During the 2nd hospitalization, I believe the massive anti-psychotics administered threw him into full-blown psychosis, as compared to the mild state of psychosis at the time he entered to get drug rehab. Drugging a young person into such a state of stupor, and then stopping medication upon discharge, surely that plays havoc on the young brain – already under siege from the effects of THC.

There are families whose kids died from drug overdoses, but began their drug usage with pot. There are those who have children hopelessly addicted to marijuana and there are those of us whose children die from the consequences of marijuana usage. All of us are stymied by a cover-up of the marijuana-mental illness link, and the fact that mental health treatment doesn’t adequately connect with substance abuse and addiction treatment.  Follow our posts by email to receive part 4 and part 5, to be published in December.

Featured, Testimonies

Why I Now Hate Pot!

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I Hate Pot

I Missed Quality Time with My Father

I wish my Dad’s relationship with me was closer than it was to…. Guess What? Pot!!!! That’s right, Pot didn’t help anybody but himself. It didn’t take long to realize the selfish behavior left no real quality place for me in his life. I would have loved more time with my Dad. I would have loved to spend more time with my Dad, rather than him searching for his next high.

TearsThe loneliness and despair of a child without a high functioning parent have left long term effects on me and my surrounding new relationships.

When your Dad asks you if your boyfriends have any pot for him? Really Dad, Wow that’s crazy boundary crossing and inappropriate regard for my place in this world. My place where I smoked pot and hated it and it has outcast me ever since. When I go to parties I hear the whispers, “she doesn’t do this” and off the crowd goes to experience their high.

Guess what, I found new friends and although not perfect I feel accepted for Hating POT!

This is a true testimony by a mom who wishes to remain anonymous.

District of Columbia, Drug Policy

Civil Rights and Drug Policy in Washington, DC

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African-Americans in Washington, DC, do not embrace marijuana legalization as readily as whites in DC — by a difference of 18 percentage points. Judge Arthur Burnett, National Executive Director of the National African-American Drug Policy Coalition, observes that opposition among  blacks to legalization stems from experience.  African-American communities already suffer from a liquor store on every corner, and black voters know commercial marijuana would prey on their communities at a much higher rate.  “Do we really want to substitute mass incapacitation for mass incarceration?” Judge Burnett asks.   He spoke along with others opponents to legalization at a Press Conference in Washington sponsored by Two. Is. Enough. D.C. (TieDC).

Judge Arthur Burnett, Executive Director of the National African-American Drug Policy Coalition, Inc., former senior judge for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia
Judge Arthur Burnett, Executive Director of the National African-American Drug Policy Coalition, Inc., former senior judge for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia

Vanita Gupta is the nominee to head the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice. According to a recent article, Gupta, a former ACLU lawyer, endorses the complete legalization of marijuana in every state, with taxation and regulation.  No DC official is more popular in Washington than Police Chief Cathy Lanier, who contends the ACLU doesn’t understand the city (to be discussed in another article).   Washington residents should vote No on Ballot 71 to legalize marijuana and reject the posturing of outside groups.

Gupta has an impressive resume, but the 39-year old would not be where she is today if she lived by the drug policies she allegedly endorses. Had Gupta partaken in pot culture as a teen, she would not have been accepted into Yale University.  If she had spent young adulthood frequently using marijuana, she wouldn’t have become a successful attorney.

Does she understand the nature of addiction?  Does she understand why every minority group voted against marijuana legalization in California?  We cannot have a national discussion of policy without including a discussion of drug abuse and addiction.

Vanita Gupta
Vanita Gupta, nominated to head the Civil Rights Division in in Department of Justice

Our education about the nature of addiction and what drugs actually do—at all our schools, and at every level–should be top priority.  Here is evidence that was recently published in “Press the President,” which featured National Families in Action’s review of the science that underlies drug abuse and addiction.

Five Unavoidable Statistics

1. Availability drives use. The more available a given drug is, the more people use that drug. The most effective prevention strategy is to keep availability to a minimum.

2. 137 million Americans use alcohol regularly; 67 million use tobacco; 20 million use marijuana.

3. The alcohol industry spent $3.5 billion in 2011 to market and advertise its products; the tobacco industry spent $8.4 billion. A commercial marijuana industry will do the same.

4. Age limits don’t prevent underage use: five of ten new smokers every year are under age 18, eight of ten new drinkers are under age 21. Age limits won’t stop underage marijuana use in legalization states.

5. About half of Colorado’s medical marijuana dispensaries in 2011 were located in one city, Denver. That year, marijuana use among Denver’s middle-school students was double that of middle-school students in the rest of the state; marijuana use among Denver’s high school students was 25 percent higher.

Shocking Facts for Drug Policy-Makers

– It’s not your daddy’s weed. The marijuana of the 60s and 70s contained 2-3 percent THC. Today’s marijuana contains 15 percent THC on average. Marijuana extracts such as Butane Hash Oil contain from 75 to 100 percent THC.

– Colorado pot shops are selling candies, cookies, and soft drinks infused with marijuana. Babies, toddlers, and preschoolers are showing up at emergency rooms because they ate them and overdosed. Some have required intensive care to recover.

– Marijuana is not harmless. A just-published review of 20 years of marijuana research worldwide finds that marijuana can impair adolescents’ intellectual development and ability to perform in school. Use that begins before age 18 can result in an average IQ drop of 8 points, enough to place a person of average intelligence in the bottom third of the IQ scale.

– Using marijuana before driving doubles the risk of having a crash.

– One in six teenagers who use marijuana regularly will become addicted; so will one in ten adults.

– Marijuana use doubles the risk of developing psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia.

Another View — Judge Arthur Burnett

Vanita Gupta has said “The war on drugs has been a war on communities of color.”   There’s a lot she could learn from Judge Arthur Burnett. He spent 31 years as a judge in the District. He doesn’t think legalization would keep young black men out of jail, Marijuana would be more readily available, leading more young people to harder drugs.  Scratch the surface of most homicides and rape cases, and the perpetrators were high on drugs, including marijuana. Marijuana introduces people to a culture where they get drawn into other drugs, though it might not be a gateway for everyone who tries it.

Gupta’s passion for racial fairness is admirable, but she doesn’t seem to have drug culture experience.  Drug use brings pain and misery to the users and families of users.  Gupta needs to understand the limited hope for children who begin drug use at an early age. Being a racial minority it hard enough, but why add another strike against minority youth by advocating a program that would increase their drug usage?